DriveThruRPG.com
Browse Categories
$ to $















Back
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat $16.99 $12.74
Average Rating:4.5 / 5
Ratings Reviews Total
3 4
0 1
1 1
0 0
0 0
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Click to view
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by Quinn S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/13/2022 17:08:12

This is currently my favorite set of platoon-scale wargaming rules. It is based on a World War II system, so there is a great realistic feeling to how battles play out. The focus is on careful maneuvering and firefights instead of just throwing blobs of units at each other. It includes three broad archetypes for armies: low-tech, mid-tech, and high-tech. Low tech armies are anything from World War II to modern armies. Mid-tech is where more sci-fi elements like walkers and power armor enter the stage. High-tech armies are equipped with the full spectrum of power armor, lasers, giant robots, and psychic generals.

The sci-fi elements definitely lean more towards hard sci-fi than science fantasy by default. There are psychic powers but they are much more limited than you would find in Warhammer 40k, and melee combat is secondary to firefights. The rules also heavily focus on humanoid forces, though there is an expansion book that gives aliens some love.

The main gameplay mechanics are pretty straightforward. Each turn both players nominate a unit they want to activate then roll a die plus that unit's leadership. Whoever wins activates the unit. This process is repeated until every unit has been activated. Once activated, units have a variety of actions they can take, such as moving, hiding, taking cover, going into melee, overwatch, etc. Each player also has a pool of command points they can spend each turn to activate special abilities or influence dice rolls. Morale is handled through a suppression system, where units become less effective as they sustain fire. Light firefights don't suppress too much but a unit under intense fire will need backup to survive. Fights are generally won through effective exploitation of suppression as much as inflicting casulties, which I really like. Most units don't have very many special rules to keep track of.

Units supporting each other is key and makes for a lot of strategic decisions to make. Vehicles need infantry to help them spot threats, infantry need support elements like snipers and machine gunners to help them close the gap, and off-site elements such as artillery and airstrikes can salvage overwhelming odds. I think the game's World War II DNA really helps here, even if you're working with power-armored psychics the battles still have a really grounded feel.

The only quibbles I have with the game are some minor ambiguities in some of the phrasing. For example, some units have weapon options that cost less points than their default loadout but it's unclear if you're meant to subtract the difference or not. Overall I highly recommend these rules.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by Ash B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/11/2014 20:28:12

If you have a large pile of Sci Fi miniatures you always wanted to paint, or painted an army and the system collapsed or company went out of business, these rules will breath new life into your collection.

What Agis has written is a very comprehesive set of near-future to far-future Sci-Fi rules that should be able to fit nearly any collection of models. Vehicles and Infantry run the gamut and you should be able to tweak a unit entry within the rules to fit anything you should like to put on the table.

This ruleset focuses more on the ebb and flow of combat, allowing for a chess-game of activations between the players rather than simple I-go-U-go back and forth. Players will nominate a unit they want to activate and test their commanders to see who will get the initiative. The commander who fails the test places their unit back in the unactivated pool to attempt to activate later.

As the commander you have resources to spend effecting this roll. Command Points represent of finit pool of buffs and tricks you can use to augment units, seize the initiative and outwit your opponent.

This focus on what units are doing, rather than how awesome they are individually, makes all Victory Decision games feel engaging. There's never a long wait for your turn and the game can feel like a dance between armies rather than two gunlines pounding away on each other. This can seem strange to players not used to this format, so when teaching the game bear this in mind!

The game scales well. Between 1000 and 2000pt games will allow you an hour or so to an afternoon of battles.

The game focuses currently on Humanoid combat. If you are looking for bestial or mixed unit (monsters and humanoids) armies, a supplement will be released covering these. types of armies.

As a final thing, the designer is super approachable! Head over to the Lead Adventure Forum (home of the Victory Decision Games) and ask him whatever you want!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by Magnus W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/11/2014 11:26:55

I've quite enjoyed my gaming with this set of rules so far! The initiative system is quite fun, leading to some exciting tension in gameplay. There is a large array of special unit and weapon rules, and rules for hovering tanks and airborne attack speeders. It lends itself to fast games and flexibility in army creation.

The main limitation in this core set of rules is the focus on human forces, from low-tech (late 20th century) human forces to high-tech power-armored human forces, with robotic drone support (Drones being modeled with the rules Single-Minded and Untrained, meaning they are immune to the morale effects of being Shaken and Suppressed, and they make less efficient use of cover).



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by Mattias J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/25/2013 16:13:22

Rules look really solid and has alot of the more advanced features i like to have in my wargames. Only thing i am missing are proper "alien" rules, especially for larger sized infantry (like for example AT-43 Karmans and Cogs). In fact it would be really cool to have the authors take on each of the AT-43 factions, hint hint Agis ;)



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by Tim W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/17/2013 10:08:13

This is now my go-to game for all 15/28mm sci-fi gaming. I find that most other "Design-it-yourself" sci-fi games are either too simple or too complicated for my liking. ViDe strikes a nice balance. Additionally most other games have either no point values (not very handy if you want to play pick up games) or have point systems that are easily exploited. ViDe uses points to build balanced forces, but does not let players min-max to the point the game becomes broken.

ViDe FC uses the same core rules as the WWII game. I see this only as a good thing as that is an excellent set of rules to build upon. They keep both sides in the game, minimize time spent doing simple tasks (like moving units through difficult terrain), keep infantry in the spot light with a long list of available combat actions and have the best morale rules I've ever used in 20 years of table top gaming. New to this version are command points and overwatch for even more tactical choices.

There is a large list of sci-fi unit types and an even larger list of sci-fi weapons. While all basic troopers in WWII had the same stat line, ViDe FC has different types of humanoid infantry units with different levels of protection and additional abilities to reflect the technological impact of advanced personal armour. In addition to tracked and wheeled vehicles, there are also hover tanks, VTOL units and walkers - all in a variety of sizes and relative technology levels. New weapons include: several varieties each of lasers, plasma cannons, missile launchers, sonic weapons, rail guns, guided mortars, particle accelerators, microwave guns and kinetic pulse weapons.

So if you have a bunch of minis hanging around from games that have gone by the wayside (or hey even if you have some new sci-fi minis!) I highly recommend this set of rules.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Victory Decision: Future Combat
Publisher: A.D.Publishing
by John K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/13/2013 19:10:57

So far, I don't see much SciFi about these rules. They are really just the same as the WWII rules with a few cosmetic changes to fit the SciFi theme - eg Walkers are essentially just tanks that ignore rough terrain; "Drones" are referred to but not defined (a standard Drone Strike is considered Precision Artillery - but there are also "Drone" teams in the lists with no explanation I can find about what makes them Drones; there's an additional reference about AI-controlled drones - maybe those are supposed to be robots; Robots are listed once - where it says you can just consider your soldiers to be robots controlled by AI instead of humans; Lasers do additional damage when then hit (with no explanation as to why).

So if you want to play WWII-style battles with SciFi miniatures, I guess this is the way to go. But it really adds very little to do with with either future (or even near future) combat.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
Displaying 1 to 6 (of 6 reviews) Result Pages:  1 
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif Back pixel_trans.gif
0 items
 Gift Certificates